


Tempuratures and Eternities

by Actually_Ichimatsu



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Come to think of it not really preslash, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, In New York you can be a new man, Maybe ill write more bug me abt it, Mentions of Suicide, Mostly hurt, Pre-Slash, Sorta illegal businesses, alex can steal emotions, but cant feel any of his own, in which the author has no idea how to describe emotions in anything but temperatures, mentions of abuse, mentions of childhood death, not rlly, save alex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 15:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actually_Ichimatsu/pseuds/Actually_Ichimatsu
Summary: Alexander Hamilton has never been able to emote on his own, only able to leech off of others. He only ever gets the bottom of the bucket.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I used a prompt and tweaked it a little y o
> 
> You thought i was just a weeb? Haha ive been obsessed with ham for a month (its so good but i wanna die everyone will NOT SHUT UP it sucks i havent had a good nearly month)
> 
> I thought i would never write fics for this fandom but hell i didnt think id fall into hell but here i am
> 
> Heres the prompt: http://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/159291953039/you-are-born-without-emotions-to-compensate-this
> 
> As always, unbeta'd because i would never bother people i care about with my s h i t just bother me if somethings wrong im tired and i wrote this on a mental break day and by now im just ranting ILL SHUT UP

Its painful. It hurts.

No matter what, when the box was open, it hurt. It made him feel... negative.

He had no idea how to define these emotions. 

He wonders sometimes, if he were born feeling emotions, he'd know how to name these emotions.

Alexander laughed, leaving a bad taste in his mouth. He would. He would be.... better off, too.

Even if these emotions hurt him, it beat anything that he would feel when the box was closed.

That is, /nothing/.

Nothingness, something he could define well. It was like a hole, a huge gaping hole that filled him entirely. The world would be grey and dark, colder than cold, and his thoughts would stop. Logic kicked in and he rarely talked. 

Nothingness, as referring to emotions, not feeling anything; is best defined as the festering of logic. 

One thing he wanted (or he felt like he wanted) for was something he felt much as a child. Back then he was a parasite- unable to control who he stole emotions from; but she didnt seem to care. She was okay with it.

The she being his biological mother.

Despite being born out of wedlock, his childhood on the tiny island was... enjoyable, he supposed. No real conflict, and his mother, while providing him care and food, gave him emotions. 

Specifically, one emotion that filled his being, one that didnt make him feel cold and empty, one that made him warm and full.

That one he knew. Happiness.

When he was born, he was born with a strange disorder, no one could explain it - it didnt help he was on a poor island in the carribean. The disorder made him unable to emote on his own, but it was almost like he sucked how he felt off of others. Like a parasite.

Many people called him demon spawn- that it was what his mother got for whoring around with men. His brother was left unaffected by the affliction, for some otherworldly reason. 

Everything aside, his young adolesence was filled with positive memories. His mom seemed to have plenty happiness to spare, so she radiated it pratically, to him. 

When his father left when Alexander was 10, his mom had rarely the time to be around him, and much less happiness to spare. He choked and fell into the nothingness, and then more emotions he was uncertain of entered his being.

He constantly felt stiff, and this almost animalistic urge to run from- he didnt know- /something/ over came him constantly. As the obliviousness due to his false emotions fell, he realized the world wasnt good. He was trapped in a world bleary.

At this point, he felt it was good to easily have that disconnection to emotion. It was like he could flip a switch in his mind and everything would go blank- his thoughts gone as he sat like an empty vessel. He found himself writing a lot in this state, unafflicted by emotion. 

But then, he got sick. Sicker than sick. Dying.

Since his father left, he hadnt been in the 'normal' world (the emoting world) for more than a few hours at a time. For some reason, the lack of hormones producing emotions had an effect on his immune system and brain. It left his entire being falling behind and shutting down due to a illness, something akin to the flu, and the fact they lived in a third world country meant they couldnt get to readily available help.

As the switch flipped back on, he felt and influx of cold. He felt colder than he usually did- freezing, paralyzing cold, a stark contrast to the clammy damp heat he felt, as his mother cried above him in their small room, trying desperately to save her youngest son. She had cool rags on his head, trying to bring down the fever.

He didnt remember much from that time.

Just that she began to come down what he came down with, and she did nothing to protect herself from it.

It got cold. She got worse. He got better.

She died on a cold Feburary night.

Him and his brother were left motherless and fatherless, and were taken in by a cousin who couldnt take care of himself.

During the short residence there, he felt a red hot fire mixed with cold ice whenever he was around his brother. His brother seemed to hold contempt for Alex, that Alex ("you damned hellspawn! I hope you're damned to hell for all eternity!") survived instead of his mother.

(In all reality, by now, he wished that too.)

His cousin, was colder than the cold he felt from his mother. If his mother was at freezing, then that man was at absolute zero.

It was almost like he felt..

Nothing.

(He felt the hole deepen when he saw the gore from his cousins remains when he went to call him for breakfast.)

After that, Alex was put into the American Foster Care system after showing great intellegence, and getting off those tiny islands. He was barely 14.

His brother was left there, as he was of age to care for himself.

He was alone, and the cold reality of it all hurt him.

Each placement was a hell worse than the last. Everything was always cold. 

(He would much rather the emptiness, but after the doctors told him the next time he kept 'the switch off that long' he'd most certainly die, he decided it was best he didnt.)

He stayed with a particularly hellish one for much of his teens, one in Georgia, but they convinced him to do a particular business that he found pretty lucrative.

As soon as he hit 18, he got the hell out of that house. He had no idea where he was going, but he just didnt want to stay there. The cold followed, but the cold there was worse.

The business he had gave him enough money to move to New York and stay in a decent apartment inner city.

The business he had started with the box.

"20 dollars for your worries! For your emotions!" 

Since leaving the Carribean, he learned that no one liked having their emotions stolen. He learned not to steal them.

The last placement taught him how to get profit off of others.

No one liked negative emotions. No one liked pain. Some people didnt like emotions at all. 

(But those came much, much less.)

All he ever got was the pain and suffering of others, ones that were willing to pay him.

Many were willing to pay, thankfully.

Many knew about this business now, and sold their feelings to the small boy. Some people even went to find his address.

Thats how this predicament came to.

"Hey sir! This the house of a Alexander Hamilton?" A freckled man said to the short, disheveled, gaunt Carribean.

"Uh... yes.." Alex felt a tugging internally and his eyelids felt like they were almost dropped to the floor. 

The fluffy brunette asked if he owned the business. Alexander rubbed his hand through his greasy hair. "Yeah, thats me."

"Can I.. um...?"

Alexander sighed. "Sure, yeah. Of course. Let me get the box." What did this kid have to give to him? Red hot 'anger'? Cold 'sadness'? Stiff 'stress'? Things that made him feel like he was falling into a pit? The irresistible urge to-

"Mr. Hamilton, are you alright?" Alexander clutched the box in front of him, he didnt even realize he grabbed it and went to the front door. 

"Oh um. Yes." Must be the last person's fire hot emotions that left him impulsive still working its way through him, he thought. "Would you like to come in." Alexander said, more of a command than a question.

"Yes sir!" The boy practically bounced in, and stood by the love seat as Alex sat down. Alexander looked at him like he was expecting him to do something. 

"Aren't you going to sit down, Mister....?" He said, a question in his tone.

"Mister Laurens." Laurens sat down and his hair fluffed up. "John Laurens. Pleasure to meet you!"

"Um... you too.." Alexander said, in a state of confusion. "Well um. Its 20 dollars for each emotion," Alexander trailed off, not being able to think of what else to say, in his tired state of mind. 

"Oh yes!" Laurens smiled, and handed him the twenty, and then his eyebrows furrowed. "How do I do this now?"

"You just, think of the emotion and I'll do the rest. I'll be done in less than five minutes."

Laurens smiled, and nodded.

Alexander did his job without thinking, it came naturally to him.

A warmth swallowing his being.

Feeling whole.

Alexander looked up at John, and John smiled back.

"What?" John smiled. "Got something in your eyes?"

Tears rolled down his face, akin to a time before, but not of cold feelings.

Of immense, unexplicible happiness.

Before Alexander knew what had happened, he was on John, hugging him tightly.

"No ones ever done... that for me before..." he said happily, voice cracking.

"Its nothing i wouldnt do." John smiled. 

"Hey um?" John said quietly after a minute. "I dont mean to sound like im coming on to you or anything, we literally just met haha," John said, cheeks flushing red, "but maybe some time, would you like to get some coffee? You seem like you could use a friend."

A friend?

"Haha," Alexander smiled, tears still flowing freely, and the happiness rejuvinated him. "Haha, yeah! Of course. Yeah!" He exclaimed.

He hadn't had one of those in an eternity.


End file.
